Editorial: Bills In House, Senate Would Increase Flexibility In School Lunches

Thursday

Mar 21, 2013 at 4:07 AMMar 21, 2013 at 6:08 AM

In large part as a response to the mounting childhood obesity crisis, the U.S. Department of Agriculture changed the requirements for school lunches beginning with the 2012-13 school year.

In large part as a response to the mounting childhood obesity crisis, the U.S. Department of Agriculture changed the requirements for school lunches beginning with the 2012-13 school year.

The new ďmeal patternsĒ emphasized fresh fruits and vegetables, and limited whole grains and lean meats or other protein sources like tofu and beans. They also imposed limits on calories and sodium.

Not surprisingly, some students balked. The most nutritious vegetable on the planet wonít help to curb hunger if a child throws it in the trash, and thatís what happened at first. The absence of french fries was a particularly stinging loss for some students, a loss that an apple and a half-cup of kale were not likely to soothe.

School officials who spoke to the Times Record in November predicted a learning curve for students regarding the new foods. Alma schools food services director Debbie Stewart saw the change as one more lesson during the school day.

ďMy job here is to teach children to eat well,Ē Stewart said.

Any parent who has tried to replace a Coke and a candy bar with a handful of carrots and a glass of skim milk can understand the cafeteria workersí frustrations.

Still, not all the complaints were related to the kinds of food being offered; some really did relate to the amount of food and the amount of calories, which really is the energy potential stored in foods.

Active students burn more calories than their more sedentary peers; some burn a lot more. An 11th-grade football player needs more energy to keep up at practices than a ninth-grade student who spends after-school time working on computer programming. The senior girl who captains the basketball team likely burns more calories than her friend who captains the robotics team. Yet all four students, with their different body types and different energy output, will get the same breakfast, the same lunch and the same no-snack.

According to a Times Record report in November, Ag Secretary Tom Vilsack recommended parents pack snacks for students headed to after-school practices. And thatís a great suggestion, although maybe less so for students who participate in the free and reduced-cost lunch program whose parents arenít able to feed them in the first place.

Perhaps the bigger problem is the typical one-size-fits-all federal problem-solving solution. Because kids, whether they play football or not, whether they are obese or not, are not one-size-fits-all problems.

Stand outside a pediatricianís office for a day, and you will quickly see that children do not grow at the same rate. The child who is tallest in her class in May might be among the shortest a year later. The impossibly long-armed and -legged young man with no visible body fat may eat like a stevedore for years without significant weight increase, while his classmate puts on pounds eating half as much. Some children meet their growth spurts by becoming wide first, then tall and slender.

These children donít have the same nutritional needs, even if they are within the same four- to six-year groups established by the USDA.

So we are glad Sen. Mark Pryor, D-Ark., has worked for several months to get the USDA to loosen its regulations. A temporary adjustment in the rules in December, lifting the cap on proteins and grains, followed protests by Sen. Pryor and Sen. John Hoeven, R-N.D.

Hoping for a more permanent solution, Sens. Pryor and Hoeven, supported by the School Nutrition Association, have introduced the Sensible School Lunch Act, which would lift the caps on proteins and grains and give fruits and vegetables a boost, while keeping calorie caps.

On Tuesday, Arkansasí four congressmen introduced a similar bill in the House of Representatives.

We salute the USDA for seeking comprehensive reform for school lunches, even if it painted with too broad a brush in its first attempt. We salute Sen. Pryor for keeping after this issue as it affects Arkansas school children.

We are optimistic about the outcome of his bill and the one presented in House in part because of Congress membersí concerns about school children and in part because itís likely to be a popular bill in farming states.

But we wish, at the risk of causing our school administrators heartburn, that someone would address the other half of the equation concerning childhood obesity: the need to get our children up and moving, the need to make some exercise part of every school day for every student ó the computer programmer and robotics fan as well as the athlete.

Where will the time come from? Where is the money? Who will keep track of the regulations?

These are real issues of concern, but so is childhood obesity, and an apple a day, while a thing of beauty, isnít going to solve that by itself.

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